I didn't read the books until I was an adult, and kind of skimmed through them at that time. I'll admit, I didn't notice how horribly racist they are. But I did have some sense of the racism in both movies (especially the Gene Wilder one, where they are midgets in blackface), and thought that was deliberate, on the part of the director and/or the author. There always seems to me to be an undertone of horror in the story, which is underscored by both the Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp performances. After all, Wonka kills four children for relatively minor social offenses. The story has a "happy ending" because Charlie becomes Wonka’s protégé and heir. But what happens if Charlie ever fails to live up to Wonka’s expectations when having a bad day (perhaps during his adolescence)? Will Wonka boil him alive in chocolate the way he did the others? Both movies portray Wonka as a capricious Capitalist Autocrat who deals out death and torture without any accountability whatsoever. Adding a suggestion of slavery on top of that is just a little more horrific icing on the basic cake. The slavery is only suggested, because the official story is the Oompa Loompas came voluntarily. Of Course, Wonka seems untrustworthy from the beginning, so the possibility of slavery is never completely eliminated. And the portrayal of the Oompa Loompas is racist regardless of the slavery issue. I definitely would never read this book to a child after having read your essay.